


Out in the Sunshine

by love2imagine



Series: Out of this World [9]
Category: White Collar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-24
Updated: 2014-06-24
Packaged: 2018-02-06 01:11:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1838926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/love2imagine/pseuds/love2imagine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal and Mozzie have Steel Keep, they also have June's in New York. But perhaps they just want a place they can call their own. Takes place about six months after Stepping Stones.</p><p>White Collar Characters not mine, just borrowed for fun. They belong to Jeff Eastin</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out in the Sunshine

 

 

Neal was humming, accompanied by about a hundred thousand bees, or that’s what it sounded like! He was happy. He was in dungarees, shirtless under them, the day was warm. He’d brushed up against the wall at some point and there was a paint smudge on his shoulder, pale against his lightly tanned skin.

 

He was painting the outside wall of the garden of the villa. He had to be careful not to damage the over-flowing flowers. Mozzie and June were inside, plotting about wine and food and cheese and the best-tasting olive-oil.

 

 _“El would have_ ** _-_** _”_ Neal cut the thought off. He still missed the El and Peter he’d imagined existed. The same as Rebecca. It was the same as Kate. Sometimes he’d wake alone and reach across the bed for her, his whole body and soul shaping themselves to fit around her, about her, within her…and the shock of solitude and loss was still fresh. But it happened less often. Hardly ever. It would become seldom with Peter and El, then never.

 

Still, this life was better. If he’d been so bad that all his romantic attachments had blown up…sometimes literally…he was paying penance by doing what he could. Making June and Mozzie as happy as they could be, forever. And being the best son to Steel that he could be, forever. It wasn’t Romance. Perhaps Mozzie was right and Romance was the biggest con of all.

 

He went to pour more paint and heard a sweet, light voice singing.

 

 

Sally came up the path carrying a basket of field flowers. She looked adorable and light and gay and about fifteen. She had on a white sun dress with a colourful pattern of posies scattered over it. Her wide, flattering straw hat had flowers round the band and ribbons floating behind her.

 

“Am I allowed to paint you, Sal?” he asked.

 

She gave him her patented Sally arch grin. “If I don’t have to sit still, Neal!”

 

She checked his work closely and said, “Monet. I’d know the brush-work anywhere!” winked at him and went inside.

 

He covered his roller with the palest peach and continued to paint the old wall. He was truly pleased for Mozzie. Who would have thought that Sally, pretty, brilliant Sally, and Mozzie would be a couple? Mozzie was ingenious and inspired, of course, more than a match for Sally, but so often mismatches occurred, making for a short-lived relationship, the more intelligent partner losing interest. These two seemed contented and trusting, and happy to spend time apart, yet equally happy to hole up in a room together – with wine – for days at a time. It was just as surprising that computer-savvy tekkie Sally had easily shifted to being domestic and practical and completely low-tech!

 

The old villa, surrounded by gardens and olive trees and grape-covered pergolas, was beginning to look and feel like home. June shared her time between New York and here, Neal or Mozzie always acting as a taxi, since she never had tried ‘jumping’ on her own. Neal still worked on fixing and copying art, and on his own pieces, some of which adorned the walls of the villa, some the walls of Steel Keep.

Mozzie had taken a huge amount of money he’d acquired from some underworld real-estate deal in Italy to take out patents – clever Mozzie! – on the alien green technologies, and went around making sure the various living organisms were treated properly and working, with Sally, on upgrading appropriate technologies all over the planet. It was so easy when one didn’t have to rely on commercial flights…or any flights!

 

To put it mildly, they were rolling in dough.

 

And all sorts of dough…June had taught Sally to make bread, they were scavengers for new recipes. The small village that lay just seven minutes fast walk from here had been thrilled when they built a larger pizza and bread oven, since the old one had been damaged in the war and the village had lost quite a few men. Neal and Mozzie taught some of the children English, and June and Sally picked up enough Italian to get by. Attractive women didn’t need nearly as much vocabulary or grammatical correctness as a man, at least amongst the men. And everyone loved June because she would sing, and everyone would join in. Italians, Irish and Welsh, always ready for a song!

 

They were busy and fulfilled. And if every now and then Neal missed the dreams of Peter and El and Kate and Rebecca, and Mozzie got antsy because there wasn’t enough excitement, and June demanded a dance evening because she said she was standing on Byron’s tap-shoes and her feet were itchy, and Sally just wanted a computer that worked…well, small price to pay.

 

June appeared at the door, holding two baskets. “We’re going to pick zucchini flowers!” she told him. “Do whatever you need to do to come and help!”

 

Neal covered the paint, tapped the lid hard all around, wrapped the roller and brushes in carefully-hoarded plastic and ran to put on better shoes, a shade hat, and wash his hands.

 

They walked together, each with a basket, talking about the olive harvest, and this type of grape and that, how the wisterias had been that spring and how lovely the ancient twisting vines of grapes and wisteria, embracing and roping about along the one wall and up to the villa-long balconies looked, and the fascinating _a_ _rt nouveau_ shadows they created. Soon they were wandering unhurriedly along the trellises that Neal, Mozzie and Franco, a teenager from the village, had strung and that were now covered in zucchini and gem-squash, Armenian- and lemon-cucumber vines. Sally had odd contacts in heritage seeds, apparently!

 

They collected the flowers until their deep baskets were filled with the yellow bounty: three out of every four male flowers and every female flower that had been pollinated. They were taking them to the feast in the village, to fry them in beer-batter, crisp and delicious.

 

“I love New York,” June said, softly, as she and Neal passed each other. “But this really feels like home, too. The people are so friendly. And this villa Mozzie found…I know you have money. You could have bought anything, anywhere. Yet this old, solid place feels as though it grew here from a seed just as the floodwater’s dried!”

 

He smiled at her and kissed her cheek. “You are a gem, my Lady June!”

 

“You’ve been visiting Steel!” she shook her finger. “I’m so glad you have someone at last.”

 

“I have found a father. I kept looking! Maybe I’ll find a lover, too.”

 

“Everyone loves you, Neal!”

 

“You know quite well what I mean, June!”

 

“Yes, I do, dear.”

 

“You get lonely, too.”

 

“I do, but I had my Byron for many long and wonderful years. I’m not looking! It’s like he’s here, and I don’t think anyone else could come close to being as special to me…as a lover. You still remind me of him, even though I don’t think you’ve run a con for…well, since the caves?”

 

“There’ve been a few little things, but we seem so busy doing legal things…isn’t that awful! Byron would disown me, had I been truly your son!”

 

June pushed her pretty hat back a bit and thought. “No. I think if he’d been here, and as happy as we all are, he wouldn’t have needed to pull any cons, either. Much, anyway!”

 

Sally and Mozzie joined them and Mozzie said, “Diana and Tamlin are planning to come and visit in a couple of weeks. We got a letter! I think it’s cute the way they’re going to jump here, but Diana writes a letter to tell us!”

 

“Diana isn’t as confident of jumping. Tamlin does it for her. What fun! We’ll have to show them the sights!” Neal said, happily.

 

“They – well Diana – probably just wants a bit of a rest first. Feed the chickens, pick a bit of fruit, lie in the sun,” June suggested.

 

“She’s quite large with child now, you are probably right, June.”

 

“That’s true,” Sally nodded. “She works hard. Not like us!”

 

“I think we can say,” Mozzie said to Neal, hugging Sally a little closer, “that we made the Big Score!”

 

Neal made a face, “You certainly did! And all it took was an alien war, being slaves…except for you…being adopted by an alien, freeing ourselves from unwanted entanglements, finding some large caves, creating a thriving business in extra-terrestrial industries and settling down to an amazingly domestic and law-abiding life!”

 

They laughed and Mozzie and Sally, their arms round each other’s waists, smiling, went ahead and Neal and June followed as they went into the shade of the hanging grape vines, talking about what they would do when Diana and Tamlin were there.

 

 

Families are funny things.

 

 

 

 

 

The End

 

 

Let me know if you enjoyed it...and don't worry, Peter and El are not gone forever!

 


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